Runner Lands on Boston Entry List With A Bogus Marathon Claim

J.D. Greening is among the runners listed on the BAA entry list for the 2019 Boston Marathon.

He submitted his time of 2:43:23 from the 2018 Wenatchee Marathon. This is well under the qualifying standard of 3:05:00.

UPDATE: HE HAS BEEN REMOVED FROM THE ENTRY LIST. HE TOOK DOWN HIS GOFUNDME AFTER RAISING $30

However, J.D. did not earn that time running the full marathon. He ran the half marathon.

Also worth noting – he had a 16-minute start/gun differential. The other runners that I sampled all had differentials of under 1 minute.

He didn’t just quietly try to sneak into Boston:

While he does not appear in any marathon results, he did with another runner’s bib in the 2017 Marine Corps Marathon. He finished just under 6 hours. He also appears in the results of the 2018 Lake Sammamish Half Marathon in 2:22:16.

The photo above was found on the Facebook page for his candidacy for the Washington State Legislature.

JD Greening for 12th Legislative District

GoFundMe

Not content with just attempting to convince friends and family (and voters?) that he qualified for Boston, yesterday he started a GoFundMe page asking them to donate so that he could afford the trip to Boston.

Some notes – no his entry was not confirmed.

All runners that submitted times that are under the cutoff received an acceptance email stating that their entry has been accepted provided that the information you submitted is accurate.

All races provide their certified results to the BAA. Since J.D. did not even compete in the marathon, he would be missing from the results sent to Boston, and his entry will be removed. While he likely would have been removed before the entry period is over, I have been in touch with the BAA to make sure his entry does not somehow slip through, possibly costing legitimate runners a spot in Boston.

By posting this, I hope to expedite the process of removing his entry, and I hope to make others aware so that they do not contribute to his GoFundMe for a trip which will never happen.

To support Marathon Investigation, consider making a small contribution.

One-Time Contribution

Don’t want to use PayPal? Click below to contribute without going through PayPal.

72 COMMENTS

Wow, that’s a good one.
The winning time for that race for the full marathon was 3:12 (perhaps the course is hilly, perhaps a less competitive race?), so he should/could have been crowing that he won by 27 minutes. Instead he is listed as finishing 222nd out of 306 finishers in an average pace of 12:25 per mile. Yet boasts of cranking down to 6:15 miles? And then to ask for money. Really went all in with the go fund me attempt.

Had I won a marathon going away but was listed as a 1/2M finisher I would be mad!

Mr. Greening was a deep also-ran in the recent primary in his district (Washington State House of Representatives District 12A, 8/7/18 primary). He finished 4th of 4 who were running, with 9.4%. I don’t quite understand how this primary works, as there were 2 Republican candidates, 1 Democrat, and 1 Independent. JD was 35.3% and 21% behind the candidates that won this primary.

If he fudges the election data the same way he fudged his Boston registration, I guess he’ll say that out of all the people that voted for JD Greening in this primary, he got 100% of that vote.

We have “top two” primaries in Washington. We don’t have party registration, so primaries are open to all voters. The top two, regardless of party preference, advance to the general election, and sometimes we have two Democrats or two Republicans in the general. The parties don’t like it but the public does. BTW we are totally vote by mail here. We don’t have polling places, lines, voter intimidation, etc. We get a ballot mailed to registered voters about three weeks before election day, and can sit down with the official voter guide and endorsements from our media of choice and make out our ballots.

As for Greening, what an outrageous grifter! And, like so many scoundrels, wraps himself in the flag besides. Good work Derek!

Washington has a “Top Two” primary system. Primaries contain all candidates for office regardless of party, and all registered voters may vote for whom they please. The top two, regardless of party, go on to the general election.

Has Derek tried to contact him? How about contacting Go Fund Me, to let them know his fundraiser is, at the very least disingenuous, if not fraudulent? And if I were a Washington state voter in his district, I would sure like to know the caliber of person that is running for office so he does not get elected! Hopefully some light will be shed on him in the local media. Three strikes: running with someone else’s bib at Marine Corp, foisting off a half time as a BQ for the full, crowdfunding for your vacation.
(Also, what about his claim that 80% of the Boston population spectate? That can’t be true, can it?)

It’s true that the city of Boston is only ~700,000 people, but the race extends well out into the suburbs. The population of people who would claim to be “from Boston” when talking to someone outside of MA is more like 5 million people.

The claim that 80% of the Boston population spectate is almost true but as phrased its not. The number of spectators on the route are typically estimated at 500K to 1M and the population of Boston, the city proper, is only 670K. Of course those 500K spectators are not all from Boston proper, in fact only a handful of miles are technically in Boston. Greater Boston has 4.8M. An estimate that 10% of Greater Boston spectates is in fact likely to be true. Its a Massachusetts holiday, Patriots Day, celebrating the start of the American Revolution. Many have that day off.

This guy is a moron. Also, he must not have ANY runner friends, if he was able to get away with toting that time, when you can clearly look at the results for that race and see he completely made it all up. I’m almost embarrassed for how naive he is to lie about this.

Another funny part about the time claim is his message to his friend about pace: he mentions doing the first half at a 7 min pace (that’s about a 1:31 half). He then says he cut it down to 6:15-25. Well, a 2:43 marathon pace is about 6:15 for the whole thing. Must be bad at math. Or was going so fast during his last 12 miles after dusting off the pacer (the website doesn’t mention pacers, a 3:00 pacer not withstanding) that his 1:12 split confused him.

I’m in a Facebook running group with him and when he posted that he qualified for Boston, my first thought was wow! He doesn’t look like he could!!
A day later the article came out!!!!
He’s been kicked out of the group!

If this guy ran an under 3 hour full Mary he’d be in A corral behind the elites. Sorry but I’ve yet to see a near elite status runner with this much muscle mass. Those runners work really hard to get to that point and it’s insulting to them to assume this guy actually ran that fast. He is Team Back of the Pack with me and the other 6 hr marathoners.

I’m glad! I reported it but they don’t tell you the outcome. I forgot to save his website, but couldn’t find it in a search later on. I was hoping they deleted it and refunded the one person who donated!

Looking at the race pics from his “BQ Qualifier.” You see him at the start, with all the fast folks, at the finish, and a couple of shots from one of the parks. Interestingly, he had a marathon bib, which was red. The half bibs were blue, and the 10k bibs were white.

“Hey guys, I’ll enter the marathon and then run the half course. The timing system will record my time, and my number will categorize me as a marathon participant. It can’t go wrong! Boston here I come!”

Derek, Did you reach out to JD before reporting on this? I don’t think you have your information correct. I believe the red bib represents the full marathon. He has a red bib on for the Wenatchee Marathon. The red bib is clear in the photos you posted in your article.

Really, there are only a couple of possibilities here:
1) He ran the half marathon and is listed in the results correctly, in which case he’s lying about his time and lied to enter Boston.
2) He ran the full marathon in which case he won the race and didn’t brag about winning the race to anyone, and is listed in the results incorrectly and didn’t get it fixed.

If option 2 was possible, why don’t we see any pictures of him on the race website as the winner?

I don’t ever like body shaming anyone, but if you told me a guy looking like this ran a 4 hour marathon, I’d be like, “I guess with hard work and lots of training, this is possible.” If you told me he ran a sub 3 hour marathon, “No way.”

Ok, Ann or JD listen up, you did NOT win the marathon. The runner, Zach Brock who won it, ran for 3:12:58 to win it. How stupid do you think we are? I rather believe in unicorn than a big blob of muscles running a 6 min per mile. You deserve body shaming, because you have asked for it.

Thank-you Derek for your continued dedication to stopping people from benefiting from false results and cheating. What is most shocking to me is how far people will go to promote themselves and think that no one else is dumb enough to pick up on their lies. I’ve donated once before but I will donate again.
Keep up the good fight!

I looked at Facebook this morning – he had two profiles – one showed him as a canvasser for the state Republican Party. Pictures of him with Rep. Cathy McMorris Rogers, retiring Rep. Dave Reichert, and the Republican trying to replace Reichert, Dino Rossi. That profile has been scrubbed. Public shaming is rough. Maybe he really didn’t realize how coveted a BQ entry is. Stupid kid, this lie might change the course of his life.

So technically, they should have downgraded him to the 10K run, which I guess is properly the best fit to the route he actually ran on the day.

When did the RD figure out something was wrong. I guess it didn’t take them long as it looks like he cam out in front of not only the leading Marathon runner and but also the official bike leading the front.

Derek this is so hilarious but at the same time so sad and so audacious. I just shared the article to a running group with 5000 plus runners in . I would be crawling under a big rock if I were him and never coming out.
I love all the previous comments ladies and gents. You crack me up and you made my day which was not so great before I read all of this.

Oh my goodness! Thank you for exposing this. I used to work at the newspaper in his area and if I still did you bet I would be clamoring to write about this story. What a cocky slimeball to think he could get away with it. Side note: Don’t worry, he lost the primary by a lot. But I want people to know about this anyway.

When Derek posts these course-cutting stories, I like to check out the course maps. This particular one offers the opportunity to skip a second loop, especially if marathoners end up with the half runners, who take a different path. Easy to see with the race’s maps. (BTW, the certification map itself sucks, couldn’t figure it out even with Google-map.)

Being Busted doesn’t lead to suicide. Not only did he cheat and try to obtain a spot that didn’t belong to him. He also tried to take advantage of other people’s good faith and helpfull nature. It is these actions that can have consequences.

He is not being bullyed, he is just being outed – people should know what kind of actions some pople are cable of. The only way he can ever feel like he is being bullied is if he thinks he did nothing wrong and thinks he deserved that entry and the trip for free.

I agree. Instead of people understanding we all make mistakes, they started tittle – tattling about A . H. (I’m protecting his anonymity) “oh he’s started a bloody war of conquest”
“He’s killed millions of Jews” .

He was so embarrassed by his ever-so-human-error he tragically took his own life!

A local news channel did a story on him yesterday. The You Tube link is on the Marathon Investigation FB page. They actually interviewed him on the phone. I found it very interesting that he never actually says in the interview that he ran the full in 2 hours. He is adamant that he registered for the full, has the full bib to prove it, his parents saw him at the start and finish, etc. And those things ARE true. But he never actually says on air that he ran the full in 2 hours. My guess is that the politician in him is formulating his strategy that there was some sort of unintentional mistake. Of course, his FB posts regarding negative splits tell a different story.

He also says in the interview that the Go Fund me page was just to help with airfare, but before it was taken down he actually said it was to cover all expenses, even food. (Ridiculous to me: you can’t even cover your own meals in Boston?!) Small detail, maybe, but more evidence of not telling the truth.

I ran a qualifying time this year after trying for over 5 years! Have come super close numerous times – as in 66 seconds off. This type of BS really gets my goat. Great catch Marathon Investigation! Keep up the good work! Now if you can find another couple thousand cheaters for this year I might get in as I only cleared my qualifying time by 29 seconds. Go get ’em!

Comments are closed.

Support Marathon Investigation

To support Marathon Investigation, consider making a small contribution.

One Time Contribution

Don't want to use Paypal? Click below to contribute without going through Paypal.